“I don’t want to lapse into BBC-bashing, but I find it astonishing that Sky Arts is currently occupying territory that once would have been claimed by public-service broadcasting. But, in recent years, the BBC has treated theatre-based drama with an indifference bordering on contempt.”
Author: Laura Collins Hughes
Pope John Paul II, The Musical
“The show, Non Abbiate Paura, takes its name from the rallying cry ‘Don’t be Afraid’ oft employed by John Paul during his time in St Peter’s, and attempts to chart the 84 years of his life in two short hours.”
Britain’s Strapped Aristocrats Sell Off Their Artworks
“Many are heirlooms and are being sold at auction – often to foreign bidders – to pay for the renovation and upkeep of country homes. Cuts in government spending have raised concerns that treasure with heritage value will increasing[ly] be sold abroad as museums and galleries are unable to afford them.”
Looted Art At Madrid’s National Archaeological Museum?
“The objects in question were bought by the Madrid museum in 1999, as part of a major collection of 181 ancient artefacts from the Etruscan period, Ancient Greece, Rome, Egypt and Spain, spanning the fifth century BC to the fifth century AD. The museum … paid $12m to the 82-year-old collector and entrepreneur José Luis Várez Fisa for the collection.”
Formulating An Argument For Funding The Arts
“To use the language of the 18th-century economist Adam Smith, the value of the arts ‘in use’ precedes their value ‘in exchange’. Once something is deemed desirable, the market can indeed establish its commercial price. But although the market can trade in the products of culture, it cannot express the value of culture as a process, or what it does.”
Where Arts Council Cuts Will Hurt Most: Rural Areas
“[R]ecent Arts Council cuts come as a particular blow in communities that are already struggling to support their cultural institutions. … [I]t’s easy for town and city-dwellers to forget how very, very different things can be in the countryside. But in a rural area, arts organisations are often the backbone of the community.”
What’s Wrong With Turner’s Record-Breaking Sale
“Apparently, it is a triumph for Turner that an art market bloated beyond sanity has decided his painting is worth something, and a marvellous day for Britain that a painting on view for decades at one of our free public museums will now be spirited away to LA.”
If Norman Foster Had Better Used His House Of Lords Perch
“It was always unlikely he would have taken time out of his day job to participate actively in the Lords,” but even so: “What if Foster had spent time campaigning as an advocate of the very highest standards of architecture, design and planning? What if he had affected legislation to ensure such standards were set out and followed?”
The Duo Who Championed Black Theatre In San Francisco
Stanley E. Williams, artistic director of the Lorraine Hansberry Theatre, died July 2, “just nine weeks after his longtime partner, Quentin Easter, executive director of the company they founded in 1981.” Their “untimely deaths … have left the Bay Area’s arts community uncertain about the future of the theater they founded.”
Why The Bay Bridge’s Eastern Span Dazzles
“More than any architectural form, a bridge lets us glimpse the society that caused it to be. We see the limits of what an era can build – the engineering chops – but also the values of the builders.”